


On Ice

by murderofonerose (atmilliways)



Series: Strike A Chord [4]
Category: Metalocalypse (Cartoon)
Genre: Boss/Employee Relationship, Dethentines 2021, Enemies and Lovers, Ice Skating, M/M, Questionable employer/employee relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 10:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29348895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atmilliways/pseuds/murderofonerose
Summary: That detail about the ice skates stuck in Charles’ head for days afterwards, like an obnoxious itch. It wasn’t until he took a good long look at the calendar and realized what day was coming up soon that he understood why. He wondered if Melmord had kept track—probably not. Charles didn’t particularly like to think back on his own deathday much either.
Relationships: Melmord Fjordslorn/Charles Foster Offdensen
Series: Strike A Chord [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2076360
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	On Ice

**Author's Note:**

> **February 10 - First Date or Anniversary**
> 
> Kind of both? This is probably the first time they've done an Activity together, and it's definitely an anniversary of sorts. 
> 
> M, thank you so much for letting me springboard off your comic! (Link in the footnotes.)

Charles had a rule about watching TV in bed, and Melmord was flaunting it. There wasn’t even a television set in the room, but the man had co-opted his laptop and pulled up some sort of streaming service that was either illegal or being charged surreptitiously to one of the CFO’s many accounts. He was already resigned either to checking his laptop for viruses or his bank statements for unauthorized credit charges later—probably both, just to be safe. 

“Close that,” Charles said flatly, not looking up from the notepad he’d brought with him to bed, jotting down his final thoughts for which tasks to prioritize tomorrow. 

“Oh come on, it’s the Olympics,” Melmord whined. 

Charles glanced over, sighed through his nose, and went back to what he was doing. “The  _ Winter _ Olympics.”

“Hey, dude, that’s the  _ best _ Olympics. Miss me with that hundred meter shotput and Downs syndrome kids shit.” Melmord blew smoke in his face, flaunting yet another rule. “Don’t tell me you never had a Dorothy Hamill poster on your bedroom wall growing up?”

“No.” Aside from Dethklok merch, Charles had never bothered with posters at any age, but that was beside the point. And Dorothy Hamill?  _ Really _ ? 

Melmord pouted, sitting up from where he’d been sprawled on his stomach for his little impromptu viewing party. “Well I did. I used to have my own skates and everything, before you killed me. They had my initials on them. Probably been sold off now.”

Charles’ only reply was to raise a single eyebrow.

“You’re such a killjoy.” Melmord huffed and closed the laptop with a snap. “ _ Fine _ , I’ll watch it later.” He stretched to put the laptop on the nightstand, reaching across Charles to do so. Malicious compliance at it’s finest. “If you stop working for at least five minutes. Come on, I came all the way up here. I took the  _ stairs _ .”

It was infuriatingly difficult to concentrate on work whenever Melmord was around, Charles thought in annoyance as he dropped the notepad onto his lap. But then, that was part of why he kept him so close, wasn’t it? Just a short forty-five minute trip from the training bowels of Mordhaus to Charles’ office on foot, easy as sending out for pizza. 

He put his pen down and grabbed Melmord by the chin as he started to retreat back to the other side of the bed, drawing him in for a kiss and a sharp nip. Melmord hummed appreciatively, oddly willing to let his irritation go as usual, staying where he was pulled to—the man was much more manageable this way. 

That was that conversation effectively over. 

* * *

That detail about the ice skates stuck in Charles’ head for days afterwards, like an obnoxious itch. It wasn’t until he took a good long look at the calendar and realized what day was coming up soon that he understood why. He wondered if Melmord had kept track—probably not. Charles didn’t particularly like to think back on his own deathday much either. Still, an idea began to form, one he didn’t particularly like nevertheless couldn’t seem to shake, just like the itch. 

It was infuriating. Ha had an entire resume’s worth of experience dealing with stupid ideas, and this was not a band meeting. If Melmord had been the one to suggest it, he would have had no compunctions regarding telling the man no to his face. 

So why, about a week later, were they at the outdoor ice rink on an almost completely insignificant Tuesday afternoon with skates strapped to their feet and about to step out onto the otherwise deserted ice?

Melmord set off immediately, a little stiff and awkward at first but warming up as he went. Before long he was gliding steadily over the ice, picking up speed. He spotted Charles, still standing in the entrance, from across the rink and waved both hands in the air. “Just like riding a fucking bike. Look how fucking bad I am, motherfucker!”

Rolling his eyes, Charles cautiously took to the ice himself. He could ski, both crosscountry and incline, but this was new. To prepare, he had done some research on the basics of skating and made sure he had adequately light winter wear. Thus, he had obtained an All Day Every Day Athleisure Wear Pant in charcoal black, a fitted sweater, and a knit cap and gloves. 

Melmord, who hadn’t known where they were going until about five minutes ago, was wearing jeans, but that didn’t seem to be slowing him down at all. He glided around and around the rink, those stupid bleached blond streaks he insisted on maintaining streaming like a flag. 

Meanwhile, Charles was having a hard time getting a feel for where his center of balance was. 

“Need a hand, man?” Melmord called cheerfully, literally skating circles around the spot where Charles had caught himself yet again just before crashing onto the ice. He was pulling his hair back into a ponytail while he said it. “I mean, you’re doing pretty good for a noob who’s not holding onto the wall, but I’m sure I could teach you a move or two.” 

“No thank you,” Charles said coldly.

A few minutes later he  _ did _ wipe out. Managing to tip onto one side at the last second, he rolled over onto his hands and knees.

Magnus sailed over. “Fell, huh?”

Charles didn’t have to look up to know there was a smug grin on his face; he could hear it well enough from where he was. “Yes.”

“Looked like it hurt. Are you high at all?”

“No.” Charles moved his skates between his hands and gently pushed himself back up, just like the articles he’d read online had advised. 

“There’s your mistake,” the other man said cheerfully. “Never fall sober; you tense up.” He looped around Charles again, just to make sure he saw him pull a blunt from a coat pocket and light up. “You gotta relax, man.  _ Be _ the moment.”

Gliding off majestically and streaming smoke, Melmord did a neat little spin and winked at Charles as he skated away backwards.

* * *

It wasn’t that Charles minded being bad at things. There were any number of things he didn’t have any particular talent for. He had never mastered backgammon, for example, or cooking anything more complicated than Instant Ramen, or dancing in public, or most social situations. He could accept those things. 

What he couldn’t accept was that he was bad at something that  _ Melmord _ was good at. 

This on its own would have bothered him, because showing off was  _ not _ for junior management, but the audible gloating absolutely didn’t help that and was setting Charles’ competitive streak on fire like a lightning storm during a drought. The teasing had been going on for quite some time now, and Charles, his nose and cheeks red from the cold, was dangerously close to snapping. 

Or perhaps he already had. The day had started out as some sort of silent apology for killing the man but had instead reminded Charles, in part, why he’d needed to do so in the first place. His blood was goddamn  _ boiling _ to put the man back in his place. Well . . . for the record, he’d tried. 

At the moment, Melmord was doing axel jumps and yell-singing "' _ Cause I am a skater boi, I said see ya later boy, you can't skate good enough for shit _ ” at the top of his lungs, while Charles had finally managed to figure out how to cross his outside skate over the skate on the inside of the curve at the ends of the long rink. 

He used that to his advantage, coming out of a curve with momentum on his side and barreling into Melmord’s side at full speed at the next opportunity. The impact caught Melmord on one foot, and he continued shooting forward with a yelp before succumbing to gravity and falling forward on his hands and knees, still skidding across the ice. Charles reeled back a bit before his own stumble and fall, the front ends of his skates briefly digging in before went over on one hip, turned it into a roll, and controlled his perfectly calibrated slide to crash into Melmord again. This time Charles had the full advantage, and managed to get one skate off and the blade pressed to the other man’s neck before Melmord could pick himself up. 

“I know quite a bit about ice, actually,” Charles told him, glaring and breathing hard. More than just breathing hard, really— _ gets the blood pumping in all the right places, doesn’t it _ . “Probably more than you. I’ve been in fights to the death on ice covered lakes. I’ve been pushed out onto black ice, fallen through, and pulled myself to safety without assistance. I just don’t know how to traverse it with a couple of  _ knife blades tied to the bottom of my feet _ !”

The last time they’d been in this position, it had been Melmord looming over him, their swords at each other’s throats. This tableau was more one-sided, which did somewhat appease what Charles could only barely admit to himself was the rage of bruised ego. 

He usually liked to think that he was above that sort of thing, but . . . apparently not. Something to consider later, on his own time. 

Melmord tried a shaky smile, even though he, too, was flushed from more than just the cold. At some point the collision-and-fall had knocked his hair out of its tie, and spilled around his head on the ice’s pale surface. “Hey . . . boss . . . I didn’t mean anything by it, I fuckin’ swear. You don’t have to put me on ice . . . literally . . . again. . . .”

That made Charles pause. 

He shouldn’t have paused, and wouldn’t have in the beginning, but something about this ill-advised series of liaisons—Charles was loath to even  _ think _ the word ‘relationship’ in this context—had worn him down over the years. And maybe Melmord reminded him a little of his boys at the moment, that time they had double-booked a show and then been so hangdog at his angry scolding that they’d run away without even remembering to take their coats and wallets with them. There had been the bite of snow in the air then, too. 

With a sigh, Charles put the skate aside and fisted his hand in Melmord’s hair, pulling him up until they were nearly eye to eye. Melmord seemed to relax almost at once, staring at him with something that struck Charles as dangerously close to trust. When—how— _ when _ had that happened? Then the look passed, and Melmord’s face settled back into the  irreverent, self-satisfied exuberance  that they were both far more accustomed to. 

* * *

_ One day mid-afternoon, back when it had still felt not long since Charles’ return to Mordhaus after his nine month absence, Melmord had sat on the edge of his desk, smoking one of his homemade brown-paper roll-ups. With his ankle over one knee and only one eye barely, lazily open, he asked, “So, Charlie! Whatcha doin’ for your birthday?” _

_ The only reason Charles looked up was because Melmord’s had landed square on top of one of the documents he was reading over. “It’s, ah, not my birthday,” he replied, nonplussed.  _

_ “Oh, but it  _ is _!” Melmord insisted. His eyes, only slightly bloodshot, opened all the way and he turned to face him more fully with a grin. “Don’t you  _ remember _ , man? You died. And then, a year ago—” reaching out with his smoking hand, he tapped the scar on the side of Charles’ face “—you were re-born! Happy re-birthday!” _

_ Charles sighed inwardly at himself for not bothering to put a concealer on that morning. He usually did, but the boys were off on one of their trips (heavily supervised by Charles’ most trusted klokateers, of course), and he often didn’t bother when they weren’t around and he didn’t need to leave the Haus himself. At the same time . . . he was surprised that Melmord had marked the date.  _

_ He almost . . . appreciated it.  _

_ As if sensing the thought and the dangerous tipping point it represented, Melmord went on to ruin it by adding, “Aww… But for you it’s just another birthday for those assholes to forget, huh?” He took one look at the resulting stormy expression and laughed, hopping off the desk and slouching off towards the still-open door. “Well if you want to celebrate in style, you know where to find me. Later, baby!” _

_ Charles hadn’t taken him up on the offer.  _ [1]

* * *

“Happy re-birthday,” Charles said finally, and waited. 

“Re. . . ?” Melmord started, then blinked. “Oh.” And then, “ _ Oh. _ Shit, really?”

“I’m, ah, afraid so.”

Melmord’s face while he worked his mind around the idea that Charles might have brought him out here to be  _ nice _ was a picture. It looked a bit like he was suffering from indigestion. “Huh. Well . . . Sorry about the song thing. It’s just, you know, I’m . . . such a fan of Avril Lavigne!”

Charles raised an eyebrow. “Are you now.”

“Totally, I saw her at Warped Tour once. Her manager maced me when I tried to ask her to let me be her new manager!”

Now  _ that _ Charles could believe, and, because he was deeply uncomfortable with the territory they had somehow wandered into, he consciously chose to. He set Melmord’s head back on the ice, not hard enough to really knock him but still hard enough not to be mistaken for gentle. 

“My knees are cold,” he announced blandly, and reached for his discarded skate again to get it properly untied to put back on his foot, which was also cold. 

Melmord propped himself up on his elbows and flashed him a smirk. “Mine aren’t, yet. You, heh.” He fidgeted slightly beneath the CFO and waggled his eyebrows. “You wanna go relax against the wall for a bit?” 

Charles glanced around the rink that they still had entirely to themselves and thought,  _ It’s not a worse idea than any of the rest of it. _ He nodded primly and continued working on his skate while Melmord wriggled out from under him. 

They made no attempt to help each other; that wasn’t how the contract worked. But they did stay out long enough that by the time the two men made their way back up the snowy path to the Haus Melmord was complaining loudly about frostbite on his knees and not getting to finish his blunt so now he was all sore from the fall, and Charles told him “Good,” and Melmord laughed and threw an arm companionably around Charles’ neck despite his annoyed protest. 

Not bad, for an almost completely insignificant Tuesday. 

* * *

1This scene first appeared in [this comic](https://atmilliways.tumblr.com/post/639244046981890048/trashvarietyhour-yesterday-i-heard-one-of-my), referenced with permission. Return to text


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